perpetually off-topic

Whoops forgot to actually screenshot a single time during this entire quest anyways here we gO

Back to playing Andromeda. Successfully rescued Moshae Sjefa from Voeld, where it turns out the kett are.... turning angara into kett? And possibly would do it to other species as well. Hard to say. I'm not entirely certain what the mechanism is here. There seems to involve some brainwashing, some time in a pod from unknown purposes, and then sticking them with giant needles filled with kett DNA?

Why are there pods?

Seriously, it doesn't seem like they do anything if you still have to needle up the prospective convert anyways. And convert is definitely the right term given how religious the kett are about the idea of turning other species into kett. Is that even a sustainable method of maintaining your species? What happens when you run out of non-kett?

There was a boss fight! With some rando called the Cardinal, apparently a former angaran woman. Went past fun and into annoying. Trying to shoot a tiny ball macguffin that kept floating around with my slow-ass sniper rifle and having to do that six times was just too many times. The stun effect lasted a good half a second, and that's being generous. Had to do the fight twice (and still didn't remember to save OR screenshot, RIP me).

And we finally got to explore Aya. It's so beautiful. I love that they didn't shy away from the place being saturated and bright. I got an awful lot of information on angaran law and some public opinion letters that's all going straight back to the Nexus, considered buying a very expensive fruit, and got scanned by a biologist grandmother. For science!

Not a hugely eventful session, all things considered. But next time: the vault on Aya!

It sure is convenient that the way the Remnant-Creators liked to terraform planets is human-safe, certain incautious applications of killer robots aside.

Eos is habitable! Ish. We have successfully established our first scientific outpost. Watch for radiation. Maybe wear sunscreen? Bringing Vetra was such a good decision though. She really knows everyone. Peebee's interesting. Kind of reminds me of Dagna, only taller, blue, and actually romanceable. Drack is my new krogan grandfather and I love him.

I know Andromeda was kind of glitchy when it came out and not super popular but I'm actually really loving the plot as it is - Citadel species, fleeing the Reapers (though it looks like we left before ME3 so we don't actually know about the Reapers), seeking out new lives and meeting new civilizations in another galaxy. Especially since I'm playing my Sara as more scientific, almost a xenoanthropologist with her background in the prothean ruins. A scientist with a sniper rifle, but nevertheless. The gameplay is good too - the Nomad handles exactly like the Mako (for better or for worse) and I could do without the alien sudoko, but jumping around glowing platforms in the dark exploring ancient vaults? Sign me the fuck up. I forgot how much I just liked shooting things in Mass Effect. I almost want to reinstall the other games...

I finally bought Mass Effect: Andromeda a couple days ago because I was salty at the DAI character creator and also it was $9 on Origin so at that point why not? I've gotten as far as the Nexus, which is not very far. But the CC is very unique - allowing you to stretch and squish but not really... alter the faces. That makes more coherent looking faces than DAI and lets the family match up well, at the price of flexibility.

Which is nice and all but holy crap there were two different East Asian presets with a matching badass dad and honestly all I want out of video games is to be able to make a face that looks like mine without fighting the game itself every step of the way and I got that. So flexibility can go fuck itself.

Standing there on the bridge with my dad and Captain Dunn felt... strange, but amazing. Just, being able to say "this is me" (with contact lenses) and I'm not alone in looking like that, in the first ten minutes of a game that isn't something like Jade goddamn Empire. I get to be in space with my dinky pistol and a broken helmet shooting aliens in the face. And it feels good.